old black water

The great gong of responsibility has gonged, and I have not been able to do anything except bonk workwardly. This is not to say Vanesssa and I have had a dull, month; rather, we've both done quite a bit:

Nessa has taught forcefully and lovingly.

I spent a week in the Amazon with 7th grade students I do not teach. I'm not exactly sure why I was chosen as a chaperone, but it was the most remarkable fieldtrip a student or teacher could imagine (slide show below). I was able to dust off and dish out youth ministry ballyhoo. One seventh grade gal shot a blow dart into my leg (the pneumatic gun was purchased in an Ticuna Indian village), and it stuck and stung.

Aside from this mishap, the trip was incredible. It was wonderful to see one of the most primal, ancient and mysterious regions of the world. We spent a night in the jungle, with ex-Brazilian army operatives, teaching us jungle survival skills. I learned to bathe in ant guts to avoid bug bites (ants smell like jungle, so bugs are not interested); we learned how to make a footholds out of a palm leaves, which can be used to climb narrow branches to gather acai berries; we learned how to start a fire with a piece of steel wool and two batteries; we saw (I don't think anyone learned) how to make automatic animal traps out of wood plant and ingenuity.



Our schemes were thwarted, pleasantly, by a father. This father it just so happens is the deputy governer of the Amazonas state. He took us on his yacht, aqcua, on a four our tour to the meeting of the Rio Negro and the Solamoes, where the Amazon officially begins. On the return trip we stopped at his twin brother's river-beach house and enjoyed a catered Brazilian churrasco.

He also led us on a tour of Manaus a city that was wealthier and more cosmopolitan than Boston and New York during the rubber boom at the advent of the 20th century.

Not a bad week at the office, I guess.